Robert Davidson
Professor
Director, Northrop Frye Centre
Bob Davidson, Professor of Spanish and Catalan, specializes in Modern Peninsular Literature and Culture with an emphasis on urban studies and cultural theories of food and hospitality. Prof. Davidson is the author of Jazz Age Barcelona (U of Toronto Press, 2009; shortlisted for the Canada Prize in the Humanities) and The Hotel: Occupied Space (U of Toronto Press, 2018). Current projects include a study of material culture and early 20th-century Spanish and Catalan narrative (By and About Things) and a monograph on terroir and Catalonia (The Taste of a Nation), which brings together research conducted over the past decade.
He is the founder and co-editor of UTP’s Toronto Iberic book series and has published work on different aspects of the Castilian and Catalan avant-gardes, cultural theory and film. Prof. Davidson has served on the editorial boards of the Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Diacritics, Catalan Review and Journal of Catalan Studies and has held visiting positions at The Johns Hopkins University, Queen Mary - University of London (Institut Ramon Llull Visiting Faculty) and University College Cork. Prof. Davidson currently serves as Director of the Northrop Frye Centre at Victoria College.
Current Research
By and About Things
This is a book about objects, the narrative tension generated when they become things, and how select Madrid and Barcelona-based authors and artists from the pre-Civil War era used them in especially innovative ways.
The Taste of a Nation
In this project, I explore the evolving articulations of Catalan identity in regards to food production, distribution and preparation...